Defying the Lycan King (Kira and Derek) novel Chapter 281

Chapter 281: A Throne of Shadow

Brian paced the length of his room, gnawing at the side of his thumb as he went.

He’d heard the guards talking through the door earlier, the way they always did when they thought nobody was listening. The Queen had been taken. His grandmother too, snatched out of Dravengard. And there was a Great War coming, the kind no one wanted to fight anymore.

He’d heard something else as well, something that had sat in his stomach like a swallowed stone. Kira was pregnant—carrying the King’s pup.

But the last piece was the one that had him wearing a track into the floorboards.

Kira was the Nexus.

He still couldn’t make himself believe it. He’d watched that girl for months, and not once had he sensed anything unusual about her. Nothing at all. And now the whole world was tilting on her, and he was stuck in a plain room with a locked door and nothing to do but chew his own hand raw.

He was done with this room. He had things to do out there.

He stopped pacing when he heard the door click. It would be the young servant who usually brought his meals, coming to collect the empty plate, and if Brian let this chance slide past him, there wouldn’t be another one worth having.

He crossed to the bed in three quick strides and sank down onto the edge of it, settling into the same posture he’d worn every day. Hands clasped between his knees, shoulders slumped, head bowed, like a man who’d given up.

The boy came in and bowed low. Whatever else Brian had become, he was still a prince of the royal house, locked door or not, and the boy had clearly been raised properly. Brian didn’t lift his head. He simply sat there, breathing slowly, waiting for the boy to turn his back.

The moment he bent over the table to lift the plate, Brian was on his feet.

The boy spun round fast, faster than Brian had expected, but not fast enough. Brian’s hand snapped out and caught him hard across the side of the neck, and the boy dropped where he stood, the plate slipping from his fingers and shattering across the stone floor.

Outside in the corridor, both gammas heard it.

They exchanged a glance, passed a few clipped words down the link, and shoved the door open together.

The room was empty. Nothing but broken crockery scattered across the floor and a bed with rumpled sheets. Their eyes swept the space, hunting for the prince. One of them moved towards the bathroom door. The other headed for the heavy curtain hanging beside the window.

He got within arm’s reach of it before Brian shoved the unconscious boy straight out at him. The gamma caught the limp body on instinct, arms closing round him, and that was exactly the problem. His weight went backwards, his heel caught, and the two of them went down together in a tangle of limbs.

Brian was already moving.

The second gamma cut him off before he reached the door, and they went at each other properly, no space in the room for anything clever. But Brian had spent his whole life training under Crane, and Crane had never once cared whether his son enjoyed it.

It took him less than half a minute to leave the gamma groaning on the floor and bolted.

By the time either of them was upright enough to give chase, Brian had already shifted, bones snapping and reshaping as he tore out of the corridor and into open air.

The alarm went up behind him, whistles and shouting and gammas spilling out of every doorway.

His beast hit the treeline at full pelt, vanished into the dark between the trunks, and that was the last any of them saw of him.

***

Derek stared at the man in front of him and barely saw him at all.

The Northern King had come out to the camp himself, in the middle of the night, with six of his own men waiting at a respectful distance among the trees. He was talking. He’d been talking for some time. Derek had a thin branch gripped in one fist and his knuckles had gone white around it.

"So what do you say, King Wolfe?" The old man spread his hands. "It’s a good alliance. A sensible one. You cannot fight the Shadow King alone and you know it better than any man here. And who’s to say your Nexus wife hasn’t already been turned? Three days in that place. Four, by tomorrow."

Derek said nothing. He simply looked at him.

"Marry my daughter," the Northern King went on, "and I’ll bring my special army to this fight, and I’ll bring the other alphas with me. You know as well as I do that when that girl comes out of there, she may well be pointing her power at you."

He took a step closer. "Or let’s be generous. Let’s say you get her out with her mind intact. Are you truly going to let some fickle infatuation stand between you and becoming the most powerful man alive?"

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